By: Revanche

Good Thing Friday (83)

September 18, 2020

If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?

Current total: Lakota, $1,763.51; Rural libraries, $321.62.


1. I spent a lot of time perusing tax code to make sure I’m prepared to record all the relevant details from the rental sale if it actually goes through soon. I hate our tax code, it’s ridiculously convoluted even for someone who is interested in combing through the fine print to collect all the necessary details. It scratched a particular itch in my brain but it’s still absurd.

2. Halloween is definitely not happening, nor are the rest of the holidays in 2020, happening in any way like normal so I am pondering what small things we can do to make our own Halloween. JB LOVES the dressing up and spends the whole year planning and plotting their costumes. It’s still not clear whether they’ve made up their minds but I need to start planning way ahead of anything we might do.

Maybe a Zoom costume playdate with their friends? With spooky themed dinner foods? I found a few ideas to mull over: mummy dogs which make me laugh, spider deviled eggs for which I need a good food substitute for the spiders because I hate olives, mummy loaf, a baked brie spider.

It shouldn’t be a carb fest though. Maybe I’ll fashion orange and green spiders from carrots and celery somehow.

What are y’all planning for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas if you observe them?

Challenges this week: ruff. It feels like every single time we get our feet under ourselves, making some new normal and making the best of what we have facing us, the kaleidoscope shifts again and we’re scrambling to make it work. Again. This is exhausting.

Seamus has been struggling again with incontinence AND a need to wake up between 3-5 am. Sometimes he needs to be let out, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he needs to be let out twice in an hour or he won’t stop pacing. Thanks to a chat with a friend, we finally figured out this wasn’t just arthritis or old dog insomnia or bad timing with too much water intake. We have a course of treatment finally and thankfully it seems to be helping. It’s been so rough for him and we haven’t gotten a good night of sleep for weeks.

I have a lot of sadness and grief this week about the shitshow this year has been in so many ways. Dear friends are going through sickness and grieving, we’re doing our best to show up for them in remote and safe ways. We’re going through a lot of changes mostly unsupported and alone outside of our small family unit. I’m learning to accept that I do need emotional support and cannot just be a robot and what a terrible time to be discovering THAT tidbit about being human. Couldn’t I just robot my way through this pandemic at least? (No, I cannot, it makes my physical pain exponentially worse.)

3. A friend sent us a small box of pastries as a pre-thank you for helping them with some manual labor. I was tolerating those carbs ok so I really enjoyed the unexpected treat with our breakfast for a few mornings.

4. We finally got some clean air!

:: Was your air breathable this week? 

8 Responses to “Good Thing Friday (83)”

  1. Alice says:

    I’m expecting our Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas to all be very low-key affairs, involving only the people in our house. We’ll dress up and do the food and whatnot, but: no costume parades, no trick-or-treating, no visitors and no visiting.

    My husband is still holding out hope that trick-or-treating is still an option. I don’t see it as a possibility myself, but we’re enough on the same page about our read of current events/numbers that I think we’ll be on the same page when we see the closer events/numbers, too. (I’m really, really glad that we are similarly sensible in our interpretations and actions. It would be tough if we weren’t.)

    • Revanche says:

      I’m so glad you’re both on the same page, too! It’s hard enough to coordinate with family and friends in a way that respects each family’s needs, it would be so tough to be conflicted within your family.

  2. Reece says:

    We are planning extended family get togethers for Thanksgiving and Christmas and trick or treating for sure. Most people we know/work with etc are planning the same, 2 weeks to slow the spread was……6 months ago. Everyone is ready to move forward. Wash hands, stay home if sick, but no more lockdown.
    It helps I live in the Midwest Where over 99% of people getting sick are recovering and hospitals nowhere near being overrun. In fact some are laying off nurses because elective procedures cancelled. Just anecdotal but that’s my take.

    • Revanche says:

      I didn’t realize that the cases were so low in the Midwest – that’s great.

      Here is still a different story, sadly, our cases are still high here. I don’t know what the messaging was in your area but ours was (and still is) about keeping the curve flatter so we alleviate stress on the healthcare system overall, so that still makes sense for us to do. We’ll add some careful socializing but until we have more permanent solutions, especially with asymptomatic folks being unknowing vectors, we’ve got to stay quite cautious.

  3. Miser Mom says:

    Our family’s favorite Halloween dinner ideas: Stuffed peppers, but carve the peppers like you do jack-o-lanterns first: monkey brains! Also, “salted rat brains” (which look suspiciously like cauliflower). Although you don’t like olives, if you use green olives (sliced in half) and hardboiled eggs, I think “Zombie eyeballs” are easier to make than the spider deviled eggs. A pasta dish with some favorite dressing (my family likes a peanut butter/soy sauce dressing for this) becomes “Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts”. We love halloween dinners. I hope JB does, too!
    Miser Mom recently posted…Miser family update, kitchen windowsMy Profile

  4. Leah says:

    We are planning a low-key Halloween, especially since I’m due with our 3rd mid-October. I’m hoping to make a pinata soon so perhaps we can do a Halloween thing with a few neighbors or with our Girl Scout Troop (only 3 girls, so not too bad).

    The kids are already amped for doing a Halloween “egg hunt” (still haven’t decided if I’m getting special eggs or going to just use our Easter eggs). We’ll carve pumpkins, get dressed up in costumes, etc. I’m going to make some modest Halloween baskets with a book or two each and some glow sticks.

    I think it will still be fun.

    We typically spend Thanksgiving with the inlaws. That’s out, but we’re getting pressure for Christmas. We will see what COVID looks like. My FIL is a restaurant consultant, so I am wary. I am looking forward to having a relaxed Thanksgiving for the first time in over a decade. I don’t even know if we’ll do Thanksgiving food.

    • Revanche says:

      Ooh low key with a newborn sounds absolutely the ticket. Of course, it still sounds like more than I’m willing to do, and like a lot of fun! 😀 I love the idea of a Halloween basket, I’d love to ponder that and see if we can come up with something not-annoying for us to do. Books are great of course.

      We made Thanksgiving our at-home holiday several years ago and it is amazing. We only do exactly as much as we want to do and nothing more.

      My fingers are crossed that if you’re not ready to see family for Christmas, they will respect that.

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